Chestnuts, Puja, and The Edge of Hell

Obhi Hazarika stopped by and ate dinner with us on my mother's birthday. Obhi, who used to be the drummer for MGMT, took me to India my first time in 2001. It was so good seeing him again.
Cat, Leigh, Wylie, and I spent an afternoon picking chestnuts at a local farm.
Every Thursday we have sitting meditation and vegi potluck at our house. It's so wonderful.
Eli and Raphael visited from out of town. Heaven on earth.
And here is Taka, Ishita, and Leigh at the Indian Puja we attended Saturday. Taka is an exchange student from Japan I've been acculturating (a favorite hobby of mine), taking him to the haunted houses downtown, queer dance parties, mexican restaurants, etc. After watching Shortbus at my house he said "My worldview has now been changed." I asked him how and he answered, "Because I could empathize with the gay and queer characters in the movie, I feel they are no different from me."

Best.

Why do we dance?

My beautiful friend Catherine just moved in with us. Now there are three.

My Japanese friends came over and made us all okonomiyaki for dinner. Leigh made inarizushi,手作り.

best.
Here we are eating breakfast with Michael Garfield. I was so thrilled he stopped by. We stayed up all night chatting in my studio with Lauren, who was visiting from Chicago. Best best best.
And the new painting in progress. Can you tell what it is?

Endless Coupling

mens agitat molem

"Mind Moves Matter"

Endless Coupling...Light-dark, emptiness-form, visible-invisible, sound-silence, figure-ground, presence-absence, mind-matter, chaos-order, yin-yang, masculine-feminine, spontaneous-intentional, individual-universal, heaven-earth, open-closed, love-fear, nirvana-samsara, one-many, formally we usually like patterns of multiple mirror relationships of variations on a theme (Jazz). Teepee-house, there is a large transparent cathedral behind our wooden one there. Can you see it? You can sleep in there, in that wooden temple. Seriously, shrines and churches in Japan become huts, tents, teepees, refuges, to keep you warm and alive at night. I've slept in one of these well kept communal forest shrines and've had wonderful dreams,... I miss them so. And who out there dreamed of living in a teepee? I think I had a small teepee growing up as a kid. I actually used to think I was an Indian, I remember. On top of my nanny being half black half cherokee, the tribe I belonged to with my father was called Indian Guides. I'm Golden Eagle, son of Bald Eagle (we chose our own names). I recently heard Indian Guides will become "Adventure Guides," Princesses (girl version) will be "Explorers" and "tribes" will be known as "circles," as the YMCA programs "curriculum" shifts to a more generalized one "based on nature." I'm also a native American in that i was born here, from Kansas, the "Wind tribe". Aquarius is an air sign too, interstingly. The "Water Carrier" is the air? Here is the Indian Guides pledge: "We, Father and son, through friendly service to each other, to our family, to this tribe, to our community, seek a world pleasing to the eye of the Great Spirit.”

I'm almost done with this painting. "Endless Coupling" comes from the Noguchi sculpture of the same name living at the Nelson Museum in Kansas City. I visited there last weekend and ended up taking about fifty photos of human hands found in the classical paintings--stunning drawings and powerful mudras each and every hand. I'll post more of those pics soon. I also spent a lot of time in the Noguchi section--Ends, Energy Void, Endless Coupling, Avatar.

Noguchi was half Japanese you know, and was the only person to voluntarily enter a Japanese internment camp during the war; he wanted to help make art, gardens, and build parks for the prisoners. What an artist! He studied under the great mystic Brancusi, who studied under Rodin, who changed the way the world looks at realism and sculpture. (See my article Reexamining Realism for more.) In a famous interview Rodin got so angry with the reporter because he though he abstracted the figure in some way. "You are mistaken. I do reproduce it exactly as it is."

"Are you not compelled to change it slightly?"

"Under no circumstances. I would have cursed myself if I had to do it!" Rodin then explains that the life of the model--the soul, anxiety, breath, and the movement of the model has to be included! "I see the whole truth, not only its surface." Anyway Noguchi's work is a big inspiration for me, im not sure why. Anish Kapoor and James Turrell as well. Those two guys blow my mind. I seriously dig what they do.

Terri said

"Ahhhhhmen. Each of these artists move beauty into space like fingers making mudras."

I miss you!

Sutter Buttes

I've just started a new tree painting. I'm working almost entirely from memory.
And I've almost finished this one. Can you see the feathers and tadpoles?

I went to Yuba City, California this weekend to meet some new family. I got to explore "the smallest mountain range in the world," the Sutter Buttes, with my nephew, father, and uncle. It was golden.

Pool Party!

The pool party was a great success! I got to see new friends and old ones. The sun illuminated the open sky, Japanese people ate veggie burgers for the first time, and the water was perfect!

a little news

Leigh and I went to our local super market and found all these beans, teas, and more! I love Lawrence.

I just learned that in June Colorado joined the 13 other states in legalizing medical Marijuana and decriminalizing possession of up to an ounce! Wow.

And last week the conservative republican openly gay federal judge Vaugh Walker overturned California’s same-sex marriage ban “Proposition 8”!

"Proposition 8 fails to advance any rational basis in singling out gay men and lesbians for denial of a marriage license. Indeed, the evidence shows Proposition 8 does nothing more than enshrine in the California Constitution the notion that opposite-sex couples are superior to same-sex couples," the judge wrote in a 136-page ruling that laid out in precise detail why the ban does not pass constitutional muster.

"Because Proposition 8 disadvantages gays and lesbians without any rational justification, Proposition 8 violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment."

California may soon join Massachusetts, Iowa, Connecticut, Vermont, New Hampshire and Washington, D.C. in allowing same sex marriage.

The upward drift towards legalizing marijuana and gay marriage is happening! Finally.

Final Days

Here are some of the people who came to the station to see me off. Tricia took the pic.

Yoshiharu DJed for me at his house: quite the honor.

Last zen meditation at the monastery. I love the empty zen garden.

The tree was more beautiful than ever.

As was Tasuku.

a couple videos

Here is Konayuki ("Powdered Snow") live by Remioromen. One of my schools sang me this song at my farewell assembly. I cried.



And here is a new Bobby Mcferrin video with a song from his new album Vocabularies. Certain parts of this song give me goosebumps.

Last week

Here I am sweeping the doorway to the tiny temple dedicated to the holy camphor tree and medicine buddha, Yakushi-nyorai. I want to live here.

There is Peter beneath Matsuyama Castle.

One last look at my shrine.

Sorry I haven't posted anything recently--been so busy finishing work and moving out of my place. I don't know where to start! (Family trauma aside),

I went camping by the Kamo River with Pat, owner of Club Belinnis where I painted the mural, for three days and he provided a hip-hop rave party, bar and coffee...I spent time with great friends and witnessed childish sexuality...

Junya came up from Tokushima to give us a curry party! pure love and affection.





Here are a few commissions I worked on till the last day. They aren't finished, but what can I do?--Sell them as is and pray for the best.

Paintings usually don't ever "finish"though anyway--They just pause at interesting places and then have a life of their own. I hope they work.

I saw the new Ghibli! The Borrower Arritetty. As expected...beautiful, subtle, creative, mature, memorable. I'll write more about it later.

Then Peter and Abigail visited and everything

came alive!!!

What beautiful, glowing, friendly people! I took these Kansans all over my town. It was a hot, sunny day. Ikku Shrine with the 1000 year-old camphor totoro trees,
the river and holy tree with Tasuku,

Emily's preschool, we met some of her kids--heaven on earth. We also went to 4 hours of karaoke!
I finished my teaching work, gave my goodbye speech at some of the schools about the Japanese proverb "Ten People, Ten Colors," cried in front of all the kids, thanked them for teaching me, took lots of pictures and got presents and flowers....

Here is Peter at the tree. What a great tree.